The Red Hand

Character Creation and Advancement

Fluff: The campaign starts with our characters at Lyria’s version of Hogswart: the Coldspire Academy. Unfortunately for them, it’s the dark ages, so they’re all Harry Potter and Snape is the nicest teacher in the place.

The students have already completed the equivalent of their undergraduate students. They’ve been paired off with mentors and serve as sort of slaves or, worse, research assistants.

Crunch: Characters start at level 3 with at least two levels of specialistwizard (focused schools are acceptable) or alternatively levels in arcanist with the school savant archetype. In a perfect world all characters will pick different specializations. In fact, it is strongly encouraged. Exceptions can be made for players with strong character concepts. In the same vein, opposition schools should contain at least one of the other party member’s specialization.

Fluff: Later in their careers, the mere names of our characters can change the course of empires. They are leaders of men, wielders of great fortunes, and masters of arcane might.

Crunch: Actually, this will be mostly supported by fluff. extremely detailed backgrounds won’t be required, but try to think of who you want your character to be before starting your build. There are a few crunchy rules however:

Hp rolls that result in less than half the dice value will be treated as half the value

With very few exceptions (looking at you futuristic robot stuff), all the official Paizo stuff is legal. You want your character to be a KasathaMedium in addition to a wizard? Sure, just make it cool/badass. Also, keep in mind that all the other kids are gonna laugh at you.

I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, so it’s not compulsory. You give me one, I’ll use it (plus you’ll get some bounties), you don’t, well… Personally, even if I don’t write something out, I always like to create a mental image of my character’s past, so, if you just want to tell me your background in a chat, that works to.

I would like to know one thing though and that’s how you were brought to the Academy? Was your family powerful/rich and you were simply invited or did the Takers have to literally kidnap you against your or your family’s will?

Once I know everyone’s arcane school, I’ll email you some Academy-specific backstory.